If you strip out the 51-cent debt service levy — used to pay off bond issues — and focus on the $3.18 operating levy — for day-to-day expenses — it ranks even lower.

Four other districts have the same operating levy, including Monett and El Dorado Springs.

Springfield school officials have placed a 20-cent increase on the April 2 ballot. If approved, it would raise the operating levy to $3.38 — the current amount in Macks Creek and Bowling Green.

Board president Tom Prater said the residents here have long been “appropriately frugal,” but he believes it is time for a slight increase.

“I think our community is going to be willing to step up and support the levy because they understand how important education is,” he said. “Even those who don’t have kids in the school district understand the importance of schools to the local community, to their own property values, to the continued attractiveness of the community as a place to live.”

This year, operating levy amounts range from $6.53 for the tiny Newtown-Harris district in Sullivan County to $2.54 in Lawrence County’s Aurora district. More than 120 of the state’s 520 districts have a rate of $4 or higher. Those include Kansas City, North Kansas City, Lee’s Summit, Columbia and Independence.

Ron Lankford, deputy commissioner for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the cost of living tends to be higher in the big cities along the Interstate 70 corridor. But, he also noted that this part of the state is more cautious about new taxes.

“That’s reflective of southwest Missouri,” he said of lower tax rates. “If you look across the state, southwest Missouri has always been lower.”

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But Lankford put Springfield’s operating tax levy in context a different way. Nearly a decade ago, when the state set its new K-12 funding formula, it also set a target operating levy.

The state figured the average levy from the top 100 largest school districts, including Springfield. It then set the rate at $3.43.

“It’s what the state says you should have as a local tax rate,” he said.

Lankford said the state determines its level of funding for a district based on the assumption that the local effort is at $3.43. That amount doesn’t change if the levy is higher or lower.

“They don’t penalize you and they don’t reward you,” he said. “If every district that isn’t at 3.43 would raise to 3.43, it wouldn’t cost the state of Missouri a penny because, unlike the (former) formula, it’s not levy-driven. But, it would create a whole lot more money for education.”

Prater said there has been an impact to the district’s lower levy. For example, the district updates its curriculum on a seven-year cycle and would like to have the flexibility to upgrade some areas, such as science, more often.

“When we look at some of the surrounding schools, that have a little higher tax levy, they’ve been able to supply some of their kids in some schools with individual computers or tablets,” he said. “... I think we’ve been limited in some of the extra offerings we’ve been able to provide — choice classes, extra curriculum at the high school level.”